Ike Aftermath

Last night we heard a rumor that our neighborhood got power back, and our friends the Marshik's were generous enough to drive by again and confirm this for us this morning. So we got some fresh food at Walmart, gassed up the truck, and headed out of San Antonio. So long La Quinta, you served us well, and if we ever have to evacuate again, we'll be back for your free happy hour!
We made it home in about 4 hours which is pretty normal for that drive. We started seeing damage as far out as Katy and it got worse as we got closer to home. We pulled into our neighborhood and people had piles of branches and fence at their curbs. Some of our neighbors even had soggy rolled up carpet because they had roof damage. Our whole time away, this whole thing seemed surreal to me, and seeing this, it finally sunk in for me that Ike hit Houston, the place where we live.
We finally got to see our house, and as our friends told us, it's fine. We don't even see a single shingle missing. I think we lucked out that we have a 1-story house and we're surrounded by 2-story homes on all three sides. Our front trees had some limbs missing and our already-crappy fence took a beating. We'll probably need to replace a lot of it. The biggest damage was to the large tree in our back yard, two huge limbs fell off which took about half of the tree with it. They're currently leaning on part of our fence and tomorrow we'll work on chopping it down and getting it out to the curb.
Here are some pictures. First, the ones I promised of our house all boarded up, pre-Ike. As you can see it is dark out, as it took us until about 10 pm last Wednesday to get this done.

As soon as we got home today, Cory un-boarded the house while I unpacked the truck. Then I cleaned out the fridge and freezer; threw out everything since we were without power for a few days. We took our patio furniture back outside and Cory repaired part of the fence that the neighbors hadn't gotten to yet so at least Cosmo can roam free in the back yard. Here are some pics of the damage.

So we're relaxing now, and excited to sleep in our own bed. As of now, we don't have work until at least Thursday, but I wouldn't be surprised if we were off the rest of the week. Overall I feel like we dodged a bullet. Yeah we need to fix some fence and we had to throw away a bunch of food from the fridge and freezer. But a lot of people have no home to return to, and no money to fix the damage to their homes. So I feel lucky that this is all we have to do, and that we are able to take care of it. Most of our friends homes have minmal to no damage as well, and I'm really greatful for them too.

Thanks to all our friends and family for checking in on us and keeping us in your thoughts! Hearing from you helped us get through those anxious waiting-hours. We can't wait to see you all in a few short weeks!